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Am I on the hamster wheel, or is the hamster wheel on me?
He does not know, for his landlord ate his raise.
He tried to scream but his mouth was full of hamster wheels
I Have No Mouth, Only Hamster Wheels, and I Must Scream
I am the hamster wheel.
The hamster wheel is me.
I am no longer the hamster wheel.
Ate his what??
Biden is going to lose the election isn't he?
Fuck.
Yeah. I really think he will. Trump shouldn't be allowed to run, but in America you can try and overthrow the government, be a cartoon villain in the business sector and a rapist and they'll let you be president twice.
It's all rigged anyway. The electoral college, gerrymandering, having some states votes count more and ignoring the popular vote... We're at the mercy of our corporate overlords.
What I fear. Biden just weak and his presidency been meh. I will vote for him but will enough people do the same in the states that count.
The infrastructure bill was a big accomplishment. With that said, I don't really care for his personality and all I wanted was healthcare reform (single payer, etc) which we didn't get.
and all I wanted was healthcare reform (single payer, etc) which we didn't get.
Manchin and (especially) Sinema made that impossible.
And I think it's one more thing that Poland will copy from US. People got super exited when the right wing government lost the election but my prediction has always been that the "progressive" government will be extremely meh and in 4 years they will lose anyway.
Thats what you get, when one party is economic hardcore neoliberalists and otherwise fascists and the other party is neoliberal reactionaries with some gay rights sprinkled in.
There is no political left in American mainstream politics and they get fucked royally for it. But then again Americans want to get fucked over getting evil socialist things like affordable healthcare
But then again Americans want to get fucked over getting evil socialist things like affordable healthcare
As an American, while I do enjoy fucking (I thought that was a universal thing for the most part) I also would really appreciate affordable (or better yet free) healthcare as well.
We should try not to generalize that every member of a population agrees with every choice their government makes.
while I do enjoy fucking (I thought that was a universal thing for the most part)
Asexuality is a thing.
True, though I think that's intended to be covered under "for the most part"
According to Gallup, most Americans do believe healthcare is the government's responsibility (57% yes to 40% no, remainder unsure/no opinion). Meanwhile paradoxically, 53% prefer private healthcare over government-run vs 43% that would prefer government-run, so what in the actual fuck...
America is an enigma.
[Source]
But I was told here yesterday that inflation is going down and I should be happy things are the way they are.... /s
Inflation is like acceleration. Acceleration going down means you are still speeding up, just at a lower rate. For prices to go down, we need DEFLATION!
Inflation has gone down. Doesn’t mean the prices have. In fact they specifically keep going up, because it seems that literally every business has decided the only thing that matters is how much their CEO is worth.
When every industry and consumer goods producer is a monopoly, market competition no longer exists so prices don't really effect demand. Especially for inelastic goods like gas or food.
I'm on a hamster wheel, but I tripped, and the wheel is still spinning, and I'm just tumbling over and over and getting trampled by the other hamsters
As someone who has had something large and expensive break with frequent enough regularity lately that it's been keeping me from building up almost any savings for almost a year, I feel this. I feel very behind.
I've never understood why people go and shoot up schools when there's likely a conference for designers of major appliances just ASKING for it. /s
Aggressive price controls work. Profit forfeitures work. Generous universal social programs work. But no, Joe wants to use the defense production act instead to make meds. Neoliberalism is accelerating fascism and autocracy.
Capitalism working as intended, don't worry guys
Except it hasn't. Inflation-adjusted prices for commonly-referenced foodstuffs (eggs, milk, bacon, and coffee, for example) are actually steady since 1995.
Things feel expensive in part because human perception over time is a frail thing and we can remember (for example) that when we were younger, gas was $1.20 a gallon. Of course, that was when I was in high school and making minimum wage, which was $3.05. Adjusting both those to inflation (in 2023 dollars), that's $3.76 for the gas (spot on) and $9.95 for minimum wage (which is a bit short of the current federal of $~~7.29~~ $7.25 (typo) , although 29 states have set higher minima, the lowest of which is $9.95)
This isn't intended to make anyone feel any better. The big problem is the absolute insane record profits and consolidation of wealth into an equally insane number of billionaires. Those are the forces we should be lining up with knives and forks against.
And contrary to the "both sides" argument, there's one side that wants to take absolutely everything for themselves and create a Christo-fascist theocracy, continuing to hoard their gold like Smaug; and another that, while still upper class and definitely not perfect, does try reduce world suck. Choose wisely.
Edited to correct typo thanks for the correction
Your using “inflation adjusted” which imo does not work.
Let’s say something costs $10 and you earn $100 a day. Then inflation comes around and it’s now $13, but your wage is $110 now.
You can use the “inflation adjusted” values to argue that it’s always been $13 in today’s money. But it’s not longer 10% of your income.
Inflation adjusted values only work when wages also go up and down with the same rate, which is obviously not true and the crux of the issue.
This article is confusing as fuck. How can you use 2022 dollars "adjusted" and then claim there's no inflation. That's literally what that adjustment is for, to normalize prices for inflation over time.
Also it jokes eggs aren't crazy expensive but they've been up to comedy levels of pricey at least twice in 3 years due to avien flu.
There's no change in the inflation rate, not denying the fact that inflation exists. All he's saying is that it is not a parabolic increase, but a straight line.
Worth noting that how we calculate inflation itself has changed significantly though. https://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-438-public-comment-on-inflation-measurement
This concept needs to spread. Those record profits and the consolidation of wealth is a real-life exploit (a hack) of capitalism. These types of situations were never intended by the visionaries that designed capitalism. This entire clusterfuck of 1% having 99% of the money was never intended by design, nor seemed like a plausible situation to need to design protections for when the economy started getting destroyed by this situation. As the sickness of greed among policymakers grew, they punched holes in the system in order to exploit the mechanics of the capitalism to collect virtually limitless money while simultaneously denying other less privileged people not "in the know" the chance to do the same.
Does anyone remember the original Super Mario Brothers, where you could get crowns, basically giving you more lives than you could possibly use? These capitalist hackers found a way to get crowns at the expense of the 99%, and nobody has any clue or organized any way to stop this hack/exploit from ruining it for everyone else.
Capitalism has been hacked. If the system administrators don't manually intervene and redistribute wealth, we are just going to keep circling the drain until it's all over like a game of Monopoly where everyone except one entity is completely bankrupt.
Ever since they got us to come out of the fields and into the factories, the point has always been about a class war against the poor. To act otherwise is to ignore history.